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Literary FestivalThu, 21 Mar 2019 16:58:02 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.10https://www.greensborobound.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/cropped-Greensboro-Bound-Sign-logo-32x32.pngGreensboro Boundhttps://www.greensborobound.com
3232155481618Catching Up with GB18 Authorshttps://www.greensborobound.com/catching-up-with-gb18-authors/
Sun, 03 Mar 2019 14:31:41 +0000https://www.greensborobound.com/?p=2499Here at Greensboro Bound, we take pleasure in bringing you, not only authors you’ve read and loved, but writers you will love WHEN you read. Sometimes, we showcase emerging or underrepresented authors because we want to encourage a sense of adventure and an ever-expanding literary landscape. We like to celebrate the success of our Festival authors […]

]]>Here at Greensboro Bound, we take pleasure in bringing you, not only authors you’ve read and loved, but writers you will love WHEN you read. Sometimes, we showcase emerging or underrepresented authors because we want to encourage a sense of adventure and an ever-expanding literary landscape.

We like to celebrate the success of our Festival authors and cheer as their books make their way into the wider world reaching broader audiences, sometimes changing shape to become songs, movies, or television shows.

In the week before we announce our 2019 line-up, we thought we’d share a partial list of some of the successes of 2018 Greensboro Bound authors over the last year.

Carmen Maria Machado’s work was featured in Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018, Best American Essay 2018, and Best American Short Story 2018. Her debut memoir, In the Dream House, will be published by Graywolf in October. Her short story collection, Her Body and Other Parties was optioned for television by FX.

]]>2499Prelude To A Festivalhttps://www.greensborobound.com/prelude-to-a-festival/
Sun, 03 Feb 2019 23:44:30 +0000http://www.greensborobound.com/?p=2331“At the still point, there the dance is.” —T. S. Eliot I haven’t introduced myself yet. I’m Deonna Kelli Sayed, the Festival Coordinator for Greensboro Bound. You may have seen me around downtown, or at the 2018 TEDx Greensboro, or behind the registration desk at a North Carolina Writers’ Network event. I’m thrilled to meet […]

I haven’t introduced myself yet. I’m Deonna Kelli Sayed, the Festival Coordinator for Greensboro Bound. You may have seen me around downtown, or at the 2018 TEDx Greensboro, or behind the registration desk at a North Carolina Writers’ Network event.

I’m thrilled to meet you, and I’m glad you’re #GreensboroBound.

The T.S. Eliot quote above is considered to be one of the most beautiful sentences in the English language. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. At least, that’s what the Internet says. The Internet is known to be wrong, on occasion.

The sentiment expressed in the sentence, however, beautifully captures the muffled fury of A Prelude to a Festival: the four months prior to Greensboro Bound where our organizing machines quietly churn to deliver what will become four days of free programming during May 16-19, 2019.

Things may look still to you, but I assure you, things are anything but.

To plan a literary festival is a frenzy, at times. A joy! A clumsy dance! After all, we’re writers. We don’t know much about dancing.

To make a festival happen, it requires a troupe of donors, volunteers, community partners (like UNCG University Libraries), the City of Greensboro, lovers of cheese straws (more on that in a minute), an independent bookstore (Scuppernong Books), authors and readers who are enthusiastic to attend.

To make a festival happen takes blind faith, dumb luck, and nine months of honest work.

In the Beginning…

The very first Greensboro Bound meeting occurred in late 2017 over cheese straws and wine. A group of dedicated folks gathered and issued two very important edicts:

• Greensboro was getting a literary festival, dammit!
• Cheese Straws would henceforth be the official food of said festival.

(Perhaps the reader is unfamiliar with the Southern Cheese Straw. Again, the Internet offers its wisdom.)

A nonprofit, Greensboro Literary Organization (GLO) was formed. In less than nine months, we raised more than $120,000 and gathered together 80 authors, 5000 readers, and a few llamas for the May festival. Just so you know, a llama pooped in the library, much to the delight of the children. Every author received homemade Cheese Straws.

At Greensboro Bound, we take our edicts very seriously.

In the Fall of 2018, we curated a series, Immigration Stories, partially funded by support from the NC Humanities Council. Another Greensboro Bound series, This Is Your Country On Drugs, featured Beth Macy, who also spoke during the 2018 festival. Greensboro Bound’s Authors Engaging Students program put authors in front of almost 6000 public school students in Guilford County, and we donated 500 books to classrooms and elementary school libraries.

Listen, we weren’t kidding when we first huddled over cheese straws and declared that we wanted to organize literary stuff.

And now…

#GreensboroBound19 is happening. The official author reveal will drop during the first week in March. What I can share now: Zadie Smith is scheduled to deliver the Saturday night Keynote Address. Her presence at the festival is in partnership with the University of North Carolina Greensboro Libraries. Fred Chappell will perform with puppets, and young readers will enjoy interactive programming with Children and Young Adult authors.

As we enter our sophomore festival year, it’s time to introduce the motley assortment of writers and community-based individuals behind Greensboro Bound.

I recall a subtle moment during last year’s festival. It was Saturday night when it felt too late to be called evening, but it wasn’t quite ready to become morning. The air, humid. A drizzle had colored the streets with a metallic sheen. A festival author stood on a Greensboro sidewalk and open her arms wide before she bellowed:

“I declare this city to be something grand!”

She put her arms down, hugged me, then said, “I love Greensboro!”
.
Her enthusiasm captured what many at Greensboro Bound felt during the festival weekend: the air seemed somehow changed, like the presence of writers had altered the cosmic alignment of downtown.

The volunteers listed above, as well as many others not yet named, will again turn downtown into something otherworldly during that third weekend in May. We hope to organize four days full of literary wonderment and awe. We hope that you, the reader, will be part of the magic.

Here’s to all the cheese straws we could possible eat between now and then.

]]>2331First Draft: Starting 2019 Writehttps://www.greensborobound.com/first-draft-starting-2019-out-write/
Wed, 02 Jan 2019 19:04:25 +0000http://www.greensborobound.com/?p=2261First Draft is a Greensboro Bound Open Mic that features diverse “curated readers” with an opportunity for others to read works-in-progress. Perfection is not required or even preferred. The goal is to bring writers together who otherwise might not be in the same room. All writers, all genders, all genres are encouraged. Monday, Jan 7th […]

]]>First Draft is a Greensboro Bound Open Mic that features diverse “curated readers” with an opportunity for others to read works-in-progress. Perfection is not required or even preferred. The goal is to bring writers together who otherwise might not be in the same room. All writers, all genders, all genres are encouraged.

Monday, Jan 7th is the next First Draft. Throw your name in the First Draft Goblet for a chance for five minutes at the mic. The program starts at 7 pm, and the evening is mc’d by poet and performer, Ashley Lumpkin.

Curated Readers for First Draft, January 2019

Photo by Francesco Campos-Lopez

Carol Roan holds B.M. in vocal pedagogy and an M.M. in voice performance from Indiana University, and was the first undergraduate recipient of The Performer’s Certificate in Voice. She also hold an M.S. in Business Policy from Columbia University Graduate School of Business in the Master’s Degree Program for Executives. She worked as an administrator for NEH seminars at Princeton University. She discovered a passion for writing when enrolled in a doctoral program in creative arts education at Rutgers University. She has since authored three books and co-edited three anthologies and have served as president of both Poets & Writers of NJ and Winston-Salem Writers.. Learn more about Carol here.

Brian Crean was born in Chicago and raised in Atlanta. He has lived and worked in Greensboro since 1997. He received an MFA in Printmaking and Sculpture from UNCG in 1999 and has been an arts columnist and freelance contributor to the Greensboro News & Record, Yes Weekly, and Triad City Beat. His photography was included in WFDD’s annual calendar in 2008, and his loft at Historic Wafco Mills has been featured in Preservation Greensboro’s Tour of Historic Homes and O.Henry Magazine. Brian currently works as the Registrar & Account Manager at ECS Conservation, where he helps facilitate the restoration of rare books, documents, and artwork on paper. Brian travels often and posts his photography and philosophical essays on his website: Stillbook.

Dr. Carrie Y. T. Kholi (more fondly known as khoLi.) is an educator; a poet and scholar; an entrepreneur; a strategist. She earned a B.A. in English Arts and Creative Writing from Hampton University, and a M.A. and Ph.D. in Literatures in English from Rutgers. in khoLi.’s career, she’s combined creativity, digital content, literature, theory and a dash of pop culture to create campaigns, content, curriculum, experimental marketing and scalable operations systems supporting the development of deepened community connection and an equitable future. She currently serves as the Co-Founder and Executive Director of HOLI. Brands, where she and a set of shrewd accomplices work to make the future now. Check out her site.

]]>2261Students at the Newcomers School Readhttps://www.greensborobound.com/students-at-the-newcomers-school-read/
Fri, 02 Nov 2018 14:47:56 +0000http://www.greensborobound.com/?p=2184The post Students at the Newcomers School Read appeared first on Greensboro Bound.
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In 2017, students from the Doris Henderson Newcomers School created two volumes of poetry, stories, and artwork to document their immigrant experience. These volumes were titled, Resilience, and The Amazing World of Resilience. In this program, students from the Newcomers School will join us to read their stories and poems. They’ll be joined by teachers from the Newcomers School who will talk about the work they do and the special place the Newcomers School holds in the Guilford County School System.

Immigration Stories, a joint project of Scuppernong Books and the Greensboro Bound Literary Festival, will explore the immigration and refugee experience in America through the lens of writing: fiction, non-fiction, and works for children. We’ll highlight the stories of the immigrant and refugee population as well as the issues, especially as they impact and affect the local community. Immigration Stories responds directly to these issues by providing the community with the opportunity to interact and engage in a series of public readings, panel discussions, and conversations with writers, scholars, and their neighbors. For more information, call 336-763-1919.

This project is made possible in part by funding from the North Carolina Humanities Council, a statewide non-profit and affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Community Conversation with

Local Refugees and Immigrants

Refugees and Immigrants in our community tell their own stories of why and how they came to America and their experience of our country. There will be time for group conversations about the refugee experience and a chance to ask questions of the participants.

Diya Abdo is Associate Professor of English at Guilford College. Her scholarship focuses on Arab women writers and Arab and Islamic feminisms. She has published poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. A first generation Paelstinian, born and raised in Jordan, she is the founder and director of Every Campus A Refuge advocating for housing refugees on campus grounds and assisting them in resettlement. Thus far, Guilford College has hosted 42 refugees (23 of them children) from the Middle East and Africa and assisted them in resttlement in Greensboro. For her work on ECAR, Abdo was named a finalist in the Arab Hope Makers Award (2018) and has received service learning and civiv engagement in higher education awards.

Ali Al-Khasrachi and Marwa Azage came to the U.S. from Iraq in March of 2017. With their three young boys, they initially stayed on Guilford College’s campus through the Every Campus A Refuge program. Ali is an artist and calligraphist. You can read more about Ali’s artwork and the family’s story here.

Jennifer Nyirandikumana is 19 years old and is currently attending high school in Greensboro. She came with her family to the U.S. from Uganda in September 2017. They stayed on Guilford’s campus for a few months before moving to the apartments on Summit and Cone shortly before the fire that claimed 5 children’s lives in that complex occurred. Currently living in a new and safe location, you can read about her family’s story here.

Rev. Julie Peeples came to Congregational in late September of 1991, having served with
her husband, the Rev. Paul Davis, as chaplains for Habitat for Humanity International at
Habitat headquarters in Americus, Georgia. Her ministerial experience includes working with
homeless women in Boston, campus ministry at St. Vincent College near Pittsburgh, serving as a
Minister of Christian Education and Family Life in a large UCC church near Boston. She is a
driving force in immigration and social justice issues in Guilford County.

Abdoul Raoufou Ousmane came from Central African Republic to Egypt when he was just 18 years old as refugee. After spending 17 years living and working in Egypt, Raouf was resettled to Greensboro this August. Raouf worked in Egypt with migrants and refugees for 9 years before coming here as getting settle to USA as refugee. He worked with diverse community and in different fields as outreach, education coordinator and social worker.

Moises Serrano is an openly undocumented and queer activist and storyteller. Since coming out as undocumented in 2010 he has relentlessly pursued equality for his community through the sharing of his narrative. His mission is to de-criminalize and humanize the issue of migration while advocating for immediate relief to migrant communities. Moises quickly became one of the most requested speakers in the state of North Carolina. Described as a “consummate orator,” his advocacy has led him to lead a Tedx talk in Greensboro and to be named a notable Latino of the triad. Moises’ advocacy has been filmed in the feature length documentary, Forbidden: Undocumented & Queer in Rural America. The five-time award winning film was recently honored by the Television Academy. Forbidden was one of seven programs honored for creating awareness, enlightening, educating and/or positively motivating audiences. Moises officially became a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College in May of 2018.

Immigration Stories, a joint project of Scuppernong Books and the Greensboro Bound Literary Festival, will explore the immigration and refugee experience in America through the lens of writing: fiction, non-fiction, and works for children. We’ll highlight the stories of the immigrant and refugee population as well as the issues, especially as they impact and affect the local community. Immigration Stories responds directly to these issues by providing the community with the opportunity to interact and engage in a series of public readings, panel discussions, and conversations with writers, scholars, and their neighbors. For more information, call 336-763-1919.

This project is made possible in part by funding from the North Carolina Humanities Council, a statewide non-profit and affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

May-Lee Chai

Useful Phrases for Immigrants: Stories

Thursday, November 1 at 7pm Scuppernong Books

With luminous prose and sharp-eyed observations, Chai reveals her characters’ hopes and fears, and our own: a grieving historian seeking solace from an old lover in Beijing, a young girl discovering her immigrant mother’s infidelity, workers constructing a shopping mall in central China who make a shocking discovery. Families struggle with long-held grudges, reinvent traditions, and make mysterious visits to shadowy strangers from their past—all rendered with economy and beauty.

With hearts that break and sometimes mend, with families who fight and sometimes forgive, the timely stories in Useful Phrases for Immigrants illuminate complicated lives with empathy and passion. Chai’s stories are essential reading for an increasingly globalized world.

“Chai’s stories alternate between depicting Chinese immigrants in the United States and migrants in China, reminding the reader of the ties between those who left their homelands and those who stayed. Immersive and complex, Chai’s characters confront questions about class, family, sexuality, love, longing and more. The sign of a strong collection is one where the stories work together to inform the reader, and Chai’s eight tales do just that.”

-Crystal Hana Kim, Washington Post

“Delving into fractured families, hoarded secrets, and the cultural and personal negotiations at the heart of the Asian American experience, May-lee Chai’s Useful Phrases for Immigrants is distinguished by writing as elegant and delicate as a snowflake.”

-Foreword Reviews

“The eight stories in this collection contain multitudes. May-lee Chai interrogates heavy subjects with a light touch. She grants each character the gift of a gleaming voice, rendering them as shaped by circumstances, while also transcending them. Useful Phrases for Immigrants is more than merely ‘useful’; this is essential reading.”

—Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage, judge of the 2018 Bakwin Award for Writing by a Woman.

“The nightmare is always that there’s one story and then your family — or you — are compared to it,” says Chai. “I would hope that Asian American readers would appreciate the diversity of the different characters… and feel that there is space for their own story to be told as well.”

May-lee Chai is the author of ten books, including the memoir Hapa Girl, a Kiriyama Prize Notable Book; the novel Tiger Girl, which won an Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature; and her original translation from Chinese to English of the 1934 Autobiography of Ba Jin. Her award-winning short prose has been published widely, including in Glimmer Train, Missouri Review,Seventeen, Crab Orchard Review, The Rumpus, ZYZZYVA, Dallas Morning News, Christian Science Monitor, and San Francisco Chronicle. The recipient of an NEA fellowship in prose, Chai is an assistant professor in the Creative Writing Department at San Francisco State University.

Immigration Stories, a joint project of Scuppernong Books and the Greensboro Bound Literary Festival, will explore the immigration and refugee experience in America through the lens of writing: fiction, non-fiction, and works for children. We’ll highlight the stories of the immigrant and refugee population as well as the issues, especially as they impact and affect the local community. Immigration Stories responds directly to these issues by providing the community with the opportunity to interact and engage in a series of public readings, panel discussions, and conversations with writers, scholars, and their neighbors. For more information, call 336-763-1919.

This project is made possible in part by funding from the North Carolina Humanities Council, a statewide non-profit and affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

]]>2165The Pauls Bring the World to Childrenhttps://www.greensborobound.com/the-pauls-bring-the-world-to-children/
Tue, 23 Oct 2018 16:22:58 +0000http://www.greensborobound.com/?p=2158Baptiste and Miranda Paul craft children's picture book which introduce us to the diversity of our world.

The Pauls Bring the World to Children

October 26 at 5:30 pm Scuppernong Books

Baptiste and Miranda Paul write children’s picture books, sometimes together and sometimes on their own. Their last book together was Adventures to School, which details how children from thirteen different nations travel to school each day, and their upcoming book (releasing in 2019), I am Farmer: Growing an Environmental Movement in Cameroon, tells the story of Tantoh Nforba, who is bringing clean water and organic gardens to his central African nation. The Paul’s work concentrates on the diversity of human experience, the diversity of our planet, and how individual efforts can bring about big changes. Find out more about them here. And here.

We are happy to host them, as a part of our series, Immigration Stories.

Baptiste Paul is a man of many talents—from woodworking to gardening to entertaining hordes of children for hours on end. Born and raised in the West Indies (St. Lucia), Baptiste is a native Creole/Patois speaker and enjoys roasting his own coffee and chocolate as well as eating anything he can cook on a grill. Baptiste holds degrees in environmental studies and political science from Bucknell University. His previous book is The Field, which, Kirkus Review called ‘an excellent picture book debut’.

Miranda Paul is an award-winning children’s author who has worked as a freelance writer, teacher, volunteer zookeeper, and more. She began writing in elementary school, thanks to her wonderful teachers. She also enjoys science, trivia, and board games. Most of Miranda’s heroes are ordinary people who do extraordinary things—including her own kidbots who invent all kinds of gadgets with their super-handy dad. Her previous books include One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia, Water is Water, and Blobfish Throws a Party. Her most recent book is Mia Moves Out which gives readers “the pleasure of seeing adoptee characters confidently negotiating a sense of home and belonging”, says Kirkus Review.

The Pauls will be visiting two Guilford County Schools, Archer Elementary and Lindley Elementary, on Thursday through Greensboro Bound’s Authors Engaging Students program, then will appear on Friday, October 26 at 5:30pm to talk about writing children’s books with Gale Greenlee.

Immigration Stories, a joint project of Scuppernong Books and the Greensboro Bound Literary Festival, will explore the immigration and refugee experience in America through the lens of writing: fiction, non-fiction, and works for children. We’ll highlight the stories of the immigrant and refugee population as well as the issues, especially as they impact and affect the local community. Immigration Stories responds directly to these issues by providing the community with the opportunity to interact and engage in a series of public readings, panel discussions, and conversations with writers, scholars, and their neighbors. For more information, call 336-763-1919.

What really drives America’s ongoing immigration debate? To answer this question, Ali Noorani, Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum, interviewed nearly sixty local and national leaders across the nation, finding voices in faith, law enforcement, and business communities to paint a nuanced picture of America that looks beyond the blaring headlines to understand how communities across the country are confronting immigration and the changing nature of the American identity. In There Goes the Neighborhood: How Communities Overcome Prejudice and Meet the Challenge of American Immigration, Noorani reaches across the political spectrum to offer a new approach to politics, one that confronts problems and pushes all parties outside of their comfort zone, in order to reach solutions.

Whether describing a pastor speaking to the need to welcome the stranger, law enforcement advocating for Muslim refugees, or a farmer’s wind-whipped face moistened by tears as he tells the story of his farm workers being deported, Noorani helps readers that America’s immigration debate isn’t about policy; it is about the culture and values that make America what it is. Especially now, when we feel our identity, culture, and values changing shape, the collective message from all the diverse voices in this inspiring book is one of hope for the future.

“An essential book to understand the fear, challenges, and opportunities on both sides of the immigration debate. This book, in many ways, explains why Trump won the election and why an honest debate on immigration is urgent. Your neighborhood depends on it.

As its mission, the National Immigration Forum brings together moderate and conservative faith, law enforcement and business leaders to weigh in with media and policy makers in support of practical and commonsense immigration, citizenship and integration policies.

Ali Noorani is a frequent commentator and has appeared on The Diane Rehm Show, MSNBC, On Point, and Marketplace. He is an op-ed contributor to CNN.com, FoxNewsLatino

In Noorani’s Only In America podcast, faith leaders, law enforcement officials, business owners and others speak openly about the way culture, identity, and values are shaping and defining our country, and they offer a constructive way forward in the immigration debate.

Immigration Stories, a joint project of Scuppernong Books and the Greensboro Bound Literary Festival, will explore the immigration and refugee experience in America through the lens of writing: fiction, non-fiction, and works for children. We’ll highlight the stories of the immigrant and refugee population as well as the issues, especially as they impact and affect the local community. Immigration Stories responds directly to these issues by providing the community with the opportunity to interact and engage in a series of public readings, panel discussions, and conversations with writers, scholars, and their neighbors. For more information, call 336-763-1919.

This project is made possible in part by funding from the North Carolina Humanities Council, a statewide non-profit and affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

]]>2153Immigration and DACA on the Groundhttps://www.greensborobound.com/greensboro-bounds-immigration-stories/
Tue, 09 Oct 2018 14:39:30 +0000http://www.greensborobound.com/?p=2129Greensboro Central Library, Nussbaum Room October 10 at 7pm What is the process for applying for asylum or refugee status? What is the process for legal immigration? How long does it take? What does it cost? Which statuses allow a pathway to citizenship and which don’t? DACA or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals has been the […]

Greensboro Central Library, Nussbaum Room

October 10 at 7pm

What is the process for applying for asylum or refugee status? What is the process for legal immigration? How long does it take? What does it cost? Which statuses allow a pathway to citizenship and which don’t?

DACA or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals has been the subject of much controversy since it was instituted by Executive Order in 2012. This policy allows some individuals who were brought as children to the US and who do not have work authorization the ability to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and to become eligible for a work permit. DACA does not provide a path to citizenship for recipients and people must meet certain criteria to qualify for renewal. What is DACA and how does it work? Why wouldn’t you apply for DACA?

What does the constantly shifting landscape of immigration policy and practice mean for those in the process?

For Immigration Stories, a joint project of Greensboro Bound Literary Festival and Scuppernong Books, we’ve gathered a panel who deal with these issues every day. Sharon Dunmore and Daniel Karlson are Immigration Attorneys, practicing in Greensboro. Moises Serrano and Maria Cortez-Perez are DACA recipients. For more information on our participants, click here. We’ll be addressing the realities of immigration policy and some of the myths and misinformation surrounding our national immigration conversation. Our panel leads us through the labyrinth.

Immigration Stories will explore the immigration and refugee experience in America through the lens of writing: fiction, non-fiction, and works for children. We’ll highlight the stories of the immigrant and refugee population as well as the issues, especially as they impact and affect the local community. Immigration Stories responds directly to these issues by providing the community with the opportunity to interact and engage in a series of public readings, panel discussions, and conversations with writers, scholars, and their neighbors. For more information, call 336-763-1919.

This project is made possible in part by funding from the North Carolina Humanities Council, a statewide non-profit and affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

]]>2129First Draft on a First Fridayhttps://www.greensborobound.com/first-draft-on-a-first-friday/
Sun, 16 Sep 2018 17:03:42 +0000http://greensborobound.com/?p=2049 First Draft is set for Friday, October 5th! Greensboro Bound invites you to drop by Scuppernong Books at 7 pm for a curated and joyful open mic. What is First Draft? First Draft is a Curated Open Mic. Selected readers, published and not-yet-published, have eight minutes to share works-in-progress. Audience members can put their […]

First Draft is set for Friday, October 5th! Greensboro Bound invites you to drop by Scuppernong Books at 7 pm for a curated and joyful open mic.

What is First Draft?

First Draft is a Curated Open Mic. Selected readers, published and not-yet-published, have eight minutes to share works-in-progress. Audience members can put their name in the First Draft Goblet for an opportunity for 5 minutes at the mic. All genres, all identities, all bodies are welcome. First Draft celebrates imperfect works-in-progress. First Draft celebrates literary community and aims to bring diverse writers together in the same room. This space is a judgment free zone.

What is a “Curated Open Mic”?

Curated Open Mic means some readers are pre-selected to read — but there’s space for audience participation at the mic, as well. Greensboro Bound desires to honor writers at all stages of their careers. We hope to bring writers into the the same room who might not otherwise have a chance to connect, and this happens by curating writers from different backgrounds and publishing experience.For more information, email greensborobound@gmail.com. Like us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.First Draft is moderated by award-winning spoken word poet, Ashley Lumpkin.

THE READERS

Jason Herndon is a writer of speculative fiction, usually fantasy. He has started a fantasy series, two novels, a novella, and seven short stories. He has finished none of them. A psychologist by day and Black Lightning by night, you can usually find him in Scuppernong Books on Saturday afternoons for Come Write In. Originally from Texas, he now resides in Greensboro, NC with his wife and dog. He is happy to nerd out with you about any number of topics.

Alice Lesperance is writer and editor covering pop culture, politics. You can read her writing in Scalawag Magazine, CharlotteMagazine, The Atlantic, and on Autostraddle, Electric Literature, Catapult and more internet places. She is the founder and editor of Shakespeare and Punk, where she’s always on the hunt for sharp cultural criticism with a personal essay slant. Learn more about her here.

Brian Lampkin is a co-owner of Scuppernong Books and part of the band, The Difficulties. He contributes a bookish column to O. Henry magazine. Brian’s book is forthcoming (Spring 2019) from Scuppernong Editions. He enjoys llama sweaters and anarchist poetry.